Part: 1 of 1Fandom: FuturamaEmail: wavinguniverse@yahoo.comRating: PGContent: Nothing too graphic, maybe mild thematic content.Type/Catagory:SOL, FriendficCannon: The middle of "The Robot Devil..."Characters: Zoidberg and LeelaHet/Slash/Both:GenPairing: NoneSummary: Leela has just rejected Fry's chilly touch. She's looking for someone to talk to, and the person she finds is the one she's least-likely to listen to.Archival rights: Automatic archival at the BCE Archive, Kai's Page, Simpworks.com, Say Argh!, TLZ and Beyond Boundaries. All others may ask, send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine. Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google" Distribution rights: Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!Disclaimer:All characters owned and created by Matt Groenig. It is not meant to reflect on the sexuality of the actual involved parties. This piece of fanfiction is not intended to misrepresent actual events and bare no resemblance to any event that has ever occurred in reality, past or present. It is not meant to disparage the used character trademarks or used persons. No copyright infringement is intended, and the author is not making any money from the publication of this story. Notes: Another aimless sort of character piece. Nothing too heavy, nothing too important, just character exploratives. It's also a fairly short vignette-style piece.

"You know that those hands aren't real. They're cold as Bender's, and lack his thuggish charm."

"If you like, I can replace them! How many fingers would you like?"

"That's unethical."

"Ethic? Pheh! Who needs ethics when you can eat for a day? So what if a person ends up with a nose on their face when it should be on the leg? Zoidberg is HUNGRY!" Her head sagged and his tone changed. "However...maybe I would do it to please you?"

"I wouldn't want you to, even if Fry agreed to it. I love that music so much, and I want to hear the opera. It's that I feel bad for enjoying it, because it's from Fry...but not from Fry. Do you understand me?"

He scratched his chin with a claw. "Quite a pickle you're in." He noted.

"I know."

"Perhaps you could tell me why you care."

Leela's expression darkened. No one questioned her authority, especially not Zoidberg. She soon recognized that he meant no real harm. "I like Fry. He's a good friend."

"Then what does it matter if he plays for you anything?"

"Because it means so much to him!" The words exploded from her lips.

"And why does it matter? You tell me he's just a friend, like Zoidberg."

"Who said you were my friend?" Leela asked tartly.

"Would you still be talking to me if I were an enemy?"

Her stance had been aggressive; now it relaxed.

"I wish I knew what to do." She admitted quietly. "I wish I could listen to my heart, instead of my head. But that's what got me here."

"Zoidberg would go to the opera. Enjoy it. There is beauty in Fry's heart, my friend, and is that not what means the most?"

Despite herself, a smile came. "Thank you, Zoidberg. I think I know what to do now."

She walked away from him with purpose, and he felt a streak of pride rush through his body.

But then the banana peels were calling his name, and he returned to the trash from whence he had risen.